Sunday, 1 February 2009

Weekly round-up: From peers under pressure to wildcat strikes

Here’s a selection of articles from the political blogosphere and Fleet Street commentariat that have caught my eye over the last seven days. It’s the merest sliver of what’s out there – please post any other links you’d like to share with NextLeft readers in the comments below.

Lord Toby Harris was the fifth Labour peer approached by undercover Sunday Times journalists setting up the splash that sent shockwaves around Westminster - although he declined to meet the “lobbyists” and was not named in the paper’s story. Over on his blog he describes the “unpleasant” experience of being targeted by the sting – which he nevertheless accepts was in the public interest, at least in light of hopeful reform initiated by Lords Leader Jan Royall in response to the story. Meanwhile, BBC Political Editor Nick Robinson cites “informed sources” dismissing the prospect of a police investigation into the peers’ conduct, at least on the back of what the Sunday Times has printed so far. That seems to have got a few of his readers’ backs up….

“Is this the week that Labour lost the election?” poses the Guardian’s Patrick Wintour, in a report depicting growing gloom within the ranks of the PLP; the Observer’s Toby Helm took his own pessimistic soundings after a round of PMQs dominated by increasingly entrenched positions over responding to the recession. Earlier off-the-record chatter – this time from within No 10 – found its way into Rachel Sylvester’s column in the Times, and went on to form part of Cameron’s attack. As ever, Prezza is there to urge a stiffening of Labour spines – and he’s had both Jon Cruddas and Matthew Taylor in his sights…

The battle over the UK fiscal stimulus continues to rage within the fourth estate. Nobel laureate Paul Krugman tells Johann Hari that the Tory approach is “pure Herbert Hoover”, while the Spectator’s Fraser Nelson continues to make the case against the Government’s economic policy. In the week of Lord Mandelson’s announcement of aid for the British car industry, Will Hutton urges more state help for employers fighting to avert redundancies. Robert Peston was on the spot in Davos – see his account of how the Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao, both “reassured and humiliated the western bankers” with an economic model he predicts to deliver 8% growth this year. But at openDemocracy Paul Rogers points to the IMF’s lower growth forecast of 6.7% for the Chinese economy and includes the Communist-run country among a list of those experiencing threatened or real social unrest amid the global economic turmoil. With its unhappy prognosis for Britain in mind, Labour blogger Hopi Sen urges a note of caution over the IMF’s record of prediction. Meanwhile, Dagenham MP Jon Cruddas sees the wildcat strikes that started at the Total refinery in Lincolnshire as a kicking out against the manifestation of an EU-facilitated “race to the bottom” over workers’ rights, not xenophobia...

Fabian General Secretary Sunder Katwala has already blogged here with the case for forging a Lib-Lab coalition in advance of the next general election. In case you’ve missed the reaction on Liberal Democrat Voice, it’s here – generating in the comments some historical soul searching about the genesis of the Lib Dems in the SDP/Liberal Alliance. At Labourlist, Lucy Powell, Labour PPC for the Lib Dem-held marginal of Manchester Withington re-states Labour’s commitment to targeting such seats, in the face of Nick Clegg's threats of a campaign to inflict 'northern discomfort' on Labour...

Briefly elsewhere, Middle East analyst Marc Lynch suggests Obama hit a home run with his al-Arabiya interview, but argues that “without some form of Hamas buy-in Obama's peace initiative will fall back into the same Clinton and Bush traps”...